Bellflower Sheriff’s Used Questionable Search Warrant to Raid and Search House

By Brian Hews

E. Garcia (first name withheld) is a hard-working law-abiding Norwalk resident living the American dream with a wife and three children, residing in a modest house at the west end of this Los Angeles County city, a house he started renting 18 months ago.

“I love this area,” said Garcia, “the house, the neighbors, its all been great since we moved here.”

Garcia has never broken the law or been thrown in jail, and has one parking ticket from eight years ago. He is very active at his children’s school.

But his life was turned upside down last Thursday Nov. 6 when, for no apparent reason to Garcia, the Bellflower Sheriff’s raided his house at around 4 pm.

Garcia, who works weekends, was resting up for his delivery route, which starts early Friday and runs into Saturday and Sunday.

Garcia was taking a nap with his one-year-old daughter when the sheriff’s, acting under a search warrant, entered his house with guns and shotguns at the ready.

It was a scene out of a television cop show, Garcia, groggy and barely awake, sat up and watched in horror as seven sheriff’s came into his home dressed in full body armor yelling at him to “get down on the floor!”

Once on the ground, many of the sheriff’s pointed their guns at Garcia’s head, some with laser guided sighting, yelling, “don’t move!”

Garcia, “scared out of his wits,” followed directions but was vehemently complaining to the Sheriff’s as to why they were raiding his house.

They told him to “shut up, put your hands up, and come outside.”

A female Sheriff’s tried to settle his daughter down, who has a severe seizure disorder, and later brought her out to Garcia.

As they went outside and asked him to sit on the ground, Garcia kept complaining and asking the Sheriffs why they were raiding his house, Garcia all along telling them “I’ve never broken any laws, I’ve never done anything in my life against the law!”

Meanwhile other sheriff’s were ransacking Garcia’s home looking for “evidence.”

The Sheriff’s began explaining to Garcia that they were watching his house for the past two months.

They told Garcia “some very dangerous drug dealing men and women were using his mailing address, so we got a search warrant to raid your house.”

The sheriff’s called the two people they were looking for Jesse and Gloria.

Garcia, who now knew the Sheriff’s were wrong, then pleaded with them saying that it’s only him, his wife, two boys, and daughter that live at the house and have been for 18 months.

They continued to search the house then eventually left, saying nothing to Garcia.

Garcia told HMG-CN, “if they were watching the house for two months they would have seen that nobody except my family comes to this house.” He went on to ask, “if there was no evidence to suggest foul play occurring at my house, how did the Bellflower Sheriff’s obtain a search warrant when they have no evidence and nothing to go on, what judge gave them the warrant based on the information?”

HMG CM contacted a local criminal attorney who said, “This looks really bad. If nothing was occurring, as Mr. Garcia said, then what were the sheriff’s doing for the past two months and what evidence did they present to the judge to get the search warrant and who is the judge who issued the search warrant? Those are all questions I would have. ”

A disgusted Garcia told HMG-CN, “They were watching the house for two months, saw nothing, then decided to raid my house to see if they could find something? What evidence did they have, nothing that’s what, this was harassment and an unlawful search.”